Once There Was God
by Gigabomb
Summary: For Team Seven, faith is what they make of it.
1. True Worship

Author's Note: Written on a whim. I don't write Sakura much.

Once upon a time, Sakura had believed in God. Not in any specific holy being that you went to church for and worshipped- that was a civilian thing, and she had been raised by shinobi parents- but in a higher power that was out there and maybe helped good people once in a while when they needed it.

There wasn't any reason for her to believe so. Her parents were atheists, and so were all the other people she knew, but Sakura had always found it comforting to think that there was someone out there who was looking out for her. When Ino befriended her, she smiled at the sky. The day she found out Sasuke was in her genin cell, she spent the night staring dreamily at the stars. When she and her team got through their first C-rank mission alive, with as many close calls as they had, Sakura burnt a candle as soon as she returned home and watched as the smoke wisped its way upward to float among the clouds.

It wasn't until later, after Sasuke had left her behind to pursue power and Naruto had done the same, though admittedly for a nobler purpose, that Sakura realized who she should have been paying tribute to all along. If she had thanked Ino instead of God, maybe their friendship wouldn't have collapsed as easily as it did. If she had thanked Kakashi-sensei and Naruto and Sasuke for getting her through the mission in Wave Country, maybe their comradery wouldn't have shattered so readily, as if made from spun glass instead of the steel bonds she'd imagined.

So Sakura didn't rely on God any more to help her when she needed it. God wouldn't help her. He had never helped her. Those close to her were what had made it possible for her to get as far as she had, not something she couldn't see. And now that most of her friends and teammates were gone or estranged, there was no one left to help her but herself.

So Sakura trained. When trouble came up, she handled it alone. When Naruto returned, she didn't stay behind him. And when it was all over, she had only herself to thank for it.

Once upon a time, Sakura had believed in God. She was glad she no longer needed to.

_END_


	2. False Worship

Author's Note: Uh... yeah. I'll probably end up doing one for Naruto, too.

Sasuke frowned in impatience as Kabuto, without giving prior warning, stepped off the main path onto a small side route that trailed idly up the mountain. It wasn't that Sasuke was in any particular hurry to get to their destination, a small village where one of Orochimaru's numerous contacts was meeting them with some vital piece of information or other. He hadn't wanted to come along at all, but Orochimaru had insisted and it wasn't like Sasuke could say no, so now that they were on their way, Sasuke wanted to get it over with as fast as possible. Which meant preferably no detours.

"What does he think he's doing?"

Orochimaru, who was also watching Kabuto make his way along the dirt-beaten path, shot his apprentice an amused glance. "At the top of that trail is a Shinto shrine. Every time we pass by here, Kabuto pays his respects."

Sasuke's frown deepened. The medic-nin seemed like the last person who would want anything to do with religion. His frown turned into an outright scowl as Orochimaru moved to follow the white-haired Sound-nin. Bad enough their journey had to be stalled, but where Orochimaru went...

"Come along, Sasuke-kun."

... Sasuke was expected to follow. Damn it.

----

Sasuke glared sourly as Kabuto knelt on the hard stone and lit a candle before clasping his hands together and murmuring a prayer under his breath. They had been at the shrine for half an hour already, which was, in Sasuke's opinion, thirty minutes too long. Even though he had to admit the shrine was beautiful, with the finely carved statues at its entrance and well-tended flora lining the pathway, he had attended shrine ceremonies far too often in his childhood- Shintoism was a vital aspect of the mangekyou legend- to have any good associations with the religion.

Orochimaru, for his part, after examining the prayer tablets hung on the shrine walls, leaned against a nearby fence and closed his eyes, apparently willing to wait until Kabuto was finished. Typical, though it still made Sasuke want to kill things. The favoritism the snake sannin showed towards the medic-nin sometimes bordered on the ridiculous. Somehow Sasuke doubted Orochimaru would care at all if _he_ wanted to stop and pray somewhere.

Finally, after purchasing his own prayer tablet from the Shinto priest decorated with the likeness of a snake (figured), writing out his prayer, and placing it with the other tablets, Kabuto was ready to go.

"Thank you, Orochimaru-sama, for letting me stop here."

"No trouble at all, Kabuto-kun."

So they left. Sasuke briefly wondered what Kabuto had written on his prayer tablet, but it was probably something cryptic that no sane person could possibly understand. At least, that was how it usually was with the medic-nin.

It wasn't until the next day that Sasuke's curiosity got the better of him and he finally asked, trying to make his question sound nonchalant, "Why do you bother going to a shrine, anyway? I doubt you actually believe in any of that."

Kabuto smiled carelessly, in that way of his that wasn't careless at all. "You're right, Sasuke-kun. I don't."

Sasuke frowned, puzzled. "Then why..."

"I've found in life that it's best to leave nothing to chance. Including faith." This time the medic-nin's smile was slightly mischievous. Sasuke could feel the hair curling on the back of his neck. There was something distinctly creepy about Kabuto, a man who only went through the motions of humanity. "You see, Sasuke-kun, it is likely that there is absolutely nothing to this thing called faith. But... you never really know, do you?"

That night, Sasuke lit a candle, and watched its smoke rise up, dissipating in the wind before it reached the stars. He waited for the stirrings of belief to move within him, as it had in his childhood, before everything had turned to dust. But there was nothing. So Sasuke put out the candle, and went back inside. He shouldn't have wasted his time. Now that he had someone who would teach him what he needed to know, he no longer needed God. He could finally make things happen on his own.

_END_


	3. Self Worship

Author's Note: And here's the Naruto one.

There were many things about his teacher that Naruto didn't understand. Most of it Naruto just chalked up to senility and the ero-sennin being hit in the head one too many times by the sandals thrown by the woman he pursued, but those traits were easily ignored. Naruto didn't see the appeal of alcohol, or gambling until you were out of money, or brothels, but neither did his teacher's liking of such things bother him. But this was different.

Naruto didn't know why it irritated him so much to watch the toad sannin clap his hands together and whisper a prayer every time before he went to flirt with someone. It just did. Mostly because it never seemed to work.

After seeing his teacher get rejected for the twenty-seventh time on their journey so far (seven months and counting), Naruto no longer bothered sticking around to watch the aftermath of Jiraiya's ill-fated attempts at scoring. Since his teacher was not around to train him (for obvious reasons), Naruto trained on his own. That was what happened the first time he left the toad sannin to his own devices, him meditating under a waterfall for several hours until Jiraiya came to find him. His teacher wasn't happy.

"Hey, brat, where were you? You carry all the money in case you didn't remember." This was something Naruto had insisted on after Jiraiya had gambled away most of their savings playing poker three towns back. "What if the girl had said yes, huh? I wouldn't have been able to take her anywhere."

"No girl ever says yes, ero-sennin."

Jiraiya scowled. "Watch your cheek, brat, if you want me to teach you a new technique tomorrow."

Naruto scowled back, but nodded in assent. Most of the time it wasn't worth fighting with his teacher about trivial stuff, if only because Jiraiya inherently held the advantage, being old and grumpy and inclined to kicking his ass.

They sat by the riverbank for a while, Naruto drying off in the warm breeze. That was once nice thing about this journey. They didn't have anywhere to be, so they didn't have to hurry. It was only after the sun had started to set that Jiraiya turned to him and asked in a low voice, "Hey, Naruto. Why'd you leave, anyway?"

Naruto thought about it. Then he shrugged. "Dunno. Guess I was sick of watching you get shot down." Jiraiya glared at him. Naruto just shrugged again. "It wouldn't be so bad, ero-sennin, if you didn't do that prayer thing every time. It doesn't seem to help at all. Seems stupid."

At that, his teacher looked thoughtful. Then he grinned at his apprentice. "Guess you're right about that, but I've been doing it so long that it's habit. Besides, it can't hurt. Who knows, one day the gods may look down upon me favorably and gift me with a woman who's willing to go at it after a glass of sake or two."

Naruto put his hands behind his head and fell backward onto the coarse grass. The sunset made the sky glow crimson. It reminded him of fire. "I don't know anything about the gods, except that they don't seem to be around when people really need them. Why do people pray to them all the time, if they don't do anything?"

"To give them hope, I suppose." Jiraiya raised an eyebrow at him. "Didn't you ever get a religious education, brat?"

Naruto shook his head. "Nah. No one ever talked about it around me much. But I wouldn't believe in 'em, anyway. If the gods were so great, where were they when I needed them? They were even less help that most of my academy instructors when I was a kid." He began systematically picking at the grass with his fingernails, if only to keep his hands occupied. The weak roots gave easily under his pull. Gods didn't seem to be protecting them much either. "I doubt the gods will help me make Hokage."

Jiraiya frowned. For a moment, a shadow seemed to flit across his face. It was in a movement that Naruto was now well familiar with that the toad sannin took his pipe out of his bag and methodically stuffed the tobacco, pinch by pinch, into the top. He lit a match just as slowly, and it wasn't until the pipe was smoking that he replied. "So. How are you going to get there, Naruto?"

Naruto grinned. "Through getting so strong that no one will be able to deny that I'm the most powerful shinobi in Konoha. I've gotta drag Sasuke's ass back home where it belongs before I can start convincing everyone else, but after I'm done with that, I'll move on up. I need to train harder to be ready in time, but that's okay. I'm going to become Hokage. It doesn't matter if the gods are on my side or not. If they get in my way, I'll just take them down too."

Jiraiya laughed. "Arrogant little brat, aren't you?"

Naruto grinned. "Nah. Told you, I don't believe in them. They won't get in my way. I'm going to become Hokage. No one ever believed in me except myself. But they will. And I'll help them when they need it." His hands clenched as he looked at the sky. The stars were just starting to come out. They glinted. Beautiful. But also distant, and forever out of reach. "I'll be greater than any god. Because I'm here. And they're not."

_END_


End file.
